


Everytime We Touch, I Get This Feeling (The Feeling Is Pain)

by FlipSpring



Series: Everytime We Touch AU [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: And whatever else, Cussing, Drinking, Linked Footnotes, M/M, Other, Slow Burnish, Tasteful angst, Thank you for my pornography, crowley is a romantic aromantic, excruciating confessions, healthy blasphemy, if you cant get storebought alloaro representation homemade is fine, im going to single handedly make 'low key gender shit' an official tag just watch me, its time for some wholesome and slightly sadomasochistic boning, low key gender shit, rated M for:, sexing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:51:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlipSpring/pseuds/FlipSpring
Summary: If the grounds of a human church are holy enough to cause the soles of a demon’s feet to burn, then the physical touch of an angel is scorching.*A catalogue opened itself in Aziraphale’s mind, a catalogue of accidental touches that he did not allow himself to consciously examine. And the catalogue sorted itself, itemized and indexed its own observations, ranked and categorized the types of contact, the shape of the pain. Skin-to-skin was the worst. A hand touching a hand was shocking in its acuity and magnitude. Touch against clothing muffled the pain, but did not erase it.





	Everytime We Touch, I Get This Feeling (The Feeling Is Pain)

**Author's Note:**

> Me > sees post on tumblr dot com about how "hey what if it horts when they touch"  
> Me > blacks out for approx 15ish? hours in three increments idk  
> Me > oh sweet, a fic
> 
> (yes i can write oneshots quickly when the mood strikes me. this ability came at a great cost, and many hours of writing absolute horseshit. the speed with which I shat this out means this is probably a little rougher than I usually post. I can't be bothered to keep combing it over though. sorry not sorry)
> 
> I was going to title this something nice and respectable like “Tenderness” or something but then I got this actual title into my head and simply could not resist.
> 
> I don’t have video editing skills so I’m gonna take us all back to the late-aughts Cascada shipping AMVs using the only medium I can. And that medium is vaguely horny fan fic written late at night.
> 
> Blame Tumblr User ryrythescienceguy for laying the eggs of this fic in my brain.

One is holy. One is profane.

~

Occasionally, Crowley thinks that the Almighty went and knit together all of creation, all its trillions of stars, all its microcosms and macrocosmos, all the grains of sand in the desert, all the drops of salt in the sea, all the beating human hearts, all the trees and grasses and skies and mountains, Heaven and Hell and Purgatory, all of it, for the specific purpose of tormenting him, personally.

God, he thinks, is a sadist.

God, he thinks, the All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Seeing, and All-Being God, is at once the most divine and most profane entity to ever exist. Oh, the Duality. It was thoughts like this that had paved his path for Sauntering Vaguely Downwards.

And then he tells himself he is being a little self-centered. Surely the Almighty knit together all of creation not just to torment _him_ , that would be stupid. That would almost suggest that God had some kind of perverse interest in him or something. Surely Her perverse pleasures were more generalized. Surely She did it in order to torment _everyone_ , not just 1 Anthony J. Crowley.

But then Aziraphale smiles at Crowley, offhand. The smile is soft, gentle. His eyes crinkle, just slightly, his head tilts by a hair, his Holy Light flickers delightfully.

And Crowley thinks, no. The Almighty is _certainly_ targeting him, personally.

~

Crowley’s Running Mental List Of Proof Of God Being A General Sadist, Actually:  
1\. Botflies (Not to throw around bad language, but like, Jesus. Botflies.)[1]  
2\. Jesus  
3\. That whole business with the Garden, and the Fruit Of Knowledge, and the Punishment For Original Sin. Like what the fuck, honestly. Crowley has a whole mental library about the Eden Incident that can (and has) put the most annoying and opinionated Religious Philosophy undergrads to shame.  
4\. Etc.

~

Crowley’s Running Mental List Of Proof Of God Being Out To See Crowley, Specifically, Suffer:  
1\. Aziraphale  
2\. Aziraphale  
3\. Aziraphale  
4\. Etc.

~

Armageddon is coming. Crowley has the distinct dishonor of delivering the baby antichrist. Why they couldn’t just manifest the baby directly into the target womb of the American diplomat’s wife was beyond his pay grade. Surely they didn’t have to go about the rigmarole of making him tote the baby into a nunnery. But maybe there was something Symbolic about it all.

He didn’t care to understand the reasoning, Symbolic or no. So perhaps it was best that the logistics were beyond his pay grade.

What he _did_ care about was the world ending, imminently. All these millenia he’d been working towards the glorious triumph of Hell over the tyrannical dominion of Heaven. But now the Antichrist was here, and. Shit.

He and Aziraphale got drunk. This was not really out of the ordinary. But usually the two of them got drunk casually, for the fun of it. This time, with the end of the world hanging over their heads, they got drunk with focus, efficiency, and aplomb.

 _“…Dolphins,”_ Crowley said, “that’s my point.”

Aziraphale made a noise in his throat, and poured himself another glass with a heroic effort of inebriated hand-eye coordination.

Over the course of their drunken evening, a treasonous thought crystallized in Crowley’s head, as treasonous thoughts were wont to do.

The end of the world. He wasn’t going to stand for it. He wasn’t going to take it lying down, either. He would remain seated as the last great act played out, with his arms crossed, pouting, having done everything he could to boo the actors and discourage the performance.

Because. Heaven sucked fat balls. And what had Hell done for him, really? All that mattered was life here on the Earth, with all its hilarious little mortals and wonderful little bottles of wine and, and suchlike. And Aziraphale.

Crowley slouched on Aziraphale’s couch, loose-limbed and liquid and fraught with tension, on the verge of collapsing into a puddle of existential madness, and he stared, drunkenly, at Aziraphale’s face, the face of an actual angel who was a physical geyser of joy and strife in Crowley’s life, and Crowley had to make him see, why couldn’t he see? That even if they couldn’t stop the end of the world, they _had to try_ , they had to go down kicking and screaming, and then Aziraphale scrunched his face, and said, “Oh, I can’t deal with this. I’m going to sober up.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, “Me too.”

~

If the grounds of a human church are holy enough to cause the soles of a demon’s feet to burn, then the physical touch of an angel is scorching.

For the first couple of millennia Crowley and Aziraphale never touched, not even by accident, in all the times they ran into each other. There was some instinct within the two of them that prevented it from happening. Their subconsciousnesses knew, somehow, that such a thing was to be avoided. An angel wasn’t to touch something so very profane. A demon wasn’t to touch something so very holy. It just wasn’t done. It was dangerous. 

But then, in the year 500 AD, after an altogether excessive intake of Gothic alcohol, the angel somehow forgot himself. He forgot himself, and what he was, and what the demon was, and he was warm with pleasant feelings of mortal merrymaking and immortal companionship.

Crowley held out another goblet of wine, grinning toothily, glasses askew, and Aziraphale reached out, careless, casual, and his fingertips brushed Crowley’s knuckles.

The pain was searing.

They both flinched back. The goblet fell to the table, spilling its contents dramatically, and rolled to a stop against a plate of roasted boar. The drunken Goths to either side of them didn’t notice. The music carried on, as did the singing, and stomping, and drinking.

The angel and the demon stared at each other for one minute of one eternity.

And then Crowley said, loudly, to be heard over the commotion of the Goths, “I think I’ll be turning in. Catch you ‘round, Aziraphale!”

And he stood, and stumbled just a little, and left.

Aziraphale stared at the spilled wine.

Aziraphale stared at his own hand.

It had hurt, so very much.

He clenched his hand into a fist, and dropped his head to the table, and for the first time in some five hundred centuries, knocked himself right into a deep sleep.

After that incident, their subconsiouses became conscious. That unknown and uncertain feeling that they should not touch each other became known and certain. They’d known that they were enemies, really. They’d known that their growing friendship was an affront to the order of things. But this was physical proof. _You are not meant to interact._

But something was off. They did continue to interact. Before, they had never touched even accidentally. Now they did touch, accidentally, in situations much like the Gothic party. Shooting pain in the fingertips when one handed an item to the other. Burning pain when one of them fixed the crease in another’s coat or plucked detritus from another’s hair. Bruising pain when one brushed past another while walking side by side.

A catalogue opened itself in Aziraphale’s mind, a catalogue of accidental contacts that he did not allow himself to consciously examine. And the catalogue sorted itself, itemized and indexed its own observations, ranked and categorized the types of contact, the shape of the pain. Skin-to-skin was the worst. A hand touching a hand was shocking in its acuity and magnitude. Touch against clothing muffled the pain, but did not erase it.

General-purpose physical pain is usually indicative of damage. But there was no physical or metaphysical damage Aziraphale could detect from coming into contact with the demon. The pain of touching Crowley was simply a warning. An indication that _This Must Not Happen._

On some late nights, Aziraphale would find himself distracted from reading. He would ponder. The voice in his mind, the one who catalogued the many Definitely Accidental touches between himself and Crowley would ask, _Why is touch the line that must not be crossed?_

Upon realizing the turn his thoughts had taken, he would immediately stop himself, and turn his attention back to the book. Or, he would go into his secret bedroom and beat his consciousness into unconsciousness, falling asleep on a narrow bed with no pillows or blankets, just a wire frame with a mattress and springs.

~

Crowley had showed up, had announced the end of the world was coming. They had dinner, like they often did. They drank, like they often did. And afterwards Crowley left, as he often did.

Aziraphale sat alone in the backroom of his bookshop, clutching a bottle of wine so tightly that it technically ought to have shattered in his hands. Miraculously, it didn’t.

 _You love him,_ said the voice in his head.

For once, Aziraphale could not make himself tell it to shut up.

 _You’ve loved him for a long time,_ said the voice in his head, apparently relishing the fact that it wasn’t being shut up.

Aziraphale put down the bottle of wine, quickly. Had the bottle of wine been capable of sighing, it would have sighed with relief.

 _The world is going to end, and all you’ve done for thousands of years is pretend you don’t love him,_ said the voice in his head. At this point, the voice in his head was truly getting above itself, and was about to suggest some very dangerous things. Aziraphale finally gathered the willpower to shut it up.

Aziraphale wrung his hands. He looked out the dark window. He looked to the clock, which ticked, slowly, cataloguing the seconds, minutes, and hours, cyclical and unstoppable. He looked at the bookshelves. He looked at the bottles of wine. He looked at the couch where Crowley had lay. He looked into empty space, and wrung his hands so tightly it hurt.

He considered getting drunk again. But he knew that drinking alone in favor of coping with his feelings was a strong sign of being an alcoholic. And he was an angel. He couldn’t allow himself to become an alcoholic.

 _You allow yourself to love a demon, though,_ piped up the voice in his head, which had somehow wriggled free of the bindings Aziraphale had put upon it.

Aziraphale’d had thousands of years of practice at controlling himself and his thoughts. He was an expert in pretending that certain thoughts were not happening, that certain feelings were not present at all. But these particular thoughts were particularly difficult. And his strength had been weakened by the news of the world ending, and having a lovely dinner, and a painful and drunken philosophical discussion with Crowley about the nature of the world, about the nature of eternity, and duty. He had only one truly effective defense left in his arsenal.

He went into his bedroom, and passed out.

~

After the Dolphins Discussion, Crowley didn’t hear from Aziraphale for a month.

This wasn’t, technically, cause for concern. But Crowley wasn’t one for technicalities. And each time he just-so-happened to pass by Aziraphale’s bookshop, the sign stated the shop was _Closed._ As erratic as Aziraphale was at keeping hours, this still seemed worrisome.

Day in and day out, for a month, Crowley bravely fought off the impulse to go inside and see what exacty Aziraphale was up to. He’d texted Aziraphale, once, after four days of not hearing from him. But Aziraphale did not text back. This left Crowley in a bind, because he subscribed heavily to the modern Rules of Passive Aggressive Engagement regarding mobile phone texts, and so refused to follow up with a second text. This usually wasn’t a problem, because Aziraphale did not subscribe to the modern Rules of Passive Aggressive Engagement regarding mobile phone texts, and would usually respond with a phone call or a barrage of texts within minutes. Or hours, if he was in the middle of a book. But never weeks.

Thirty two days after the Dolphins Discussion, Crowley broke down, and broke into Aziraphale’s bookshop.

“Angel?” he called, to a silent, dusty shop. There was no reply.

He stalked deeper amongst the stacks and shelves, silent, shadowlike. Perhaps something had happened to Aziraphale. The thought drew claws of ice down his spine.

He did a slow, methodical sweep of the shop and backroom. No sign of Aziraphale. No sign of a struggle. The wine from the Dolphins Discussion had been left out. This caused jaws of ice to chew on the back of his neck. It wasn't like Aziraphale to not put things away.

He swept the shop again. Each step he took was supernaturally silent, and weighted with dread.

No sign of Aziraphale. No sign of a struggle. And then he passed a door, which he hadn’t noticed before. A closet, perhaps? He opened the door.

Inside was a bedroom. Well, it was at the very least a room, which contained a bed. In the bed lay Aziraphale, lying still and flat on his back, arms at his sides, clothed in the clothes he always wore. He looked like a corpse, ready for dissection. Crowley crossed the room in one step, reached towards the angel, but stopped himself just short of touching him. Aziraphale seemed fine, just deeply asleep. He was breathing, steadily. His eyes flickered just a little behind his eyelids. Crowley hadn’t known Aziraphale to sleep in all the thousands of years they’d known each other.

Nonplussed, he straightened, and scanned the bed-room. Unlike the rest of Aziraphale’s domain, the bedroom was painfully barren. The room itself was so small it may well have been a large closet at one point. There was just enough space for the bed Aziraphale lay in. There were only two books scattered on the floor, looking forlorn and abandoned. There was no light fixture in the room, and no window. The bed itself was an absolute travesty, an ancient thing that had never heard of comfort nor class, that squeaked just from being looked at. And there were _no pillows._

Crowley was halfway through miracling up some pillows, when he stopped himself, thank Satan. 

He stared down at Aziraphale, thoroughly disturbed. What the fuck was Aziraphale doing, sleeping a month away in a closet, on a bed so shitty Crowley himself wouldn’t have touched it unless there were some serious rewards to be had for doing so.

“What are you _doing,_ Aziraphale?” he muttered. It didn’t make sense.

Aziraphale’s eyelids fluttered.

“Oh, shit,” said Crowley, and tried to duck out of the room, but tripped on one of the books, the bastards. He just managed to catch himself.

“Crowley?”

Crowley turned, shoulders pulled up to his ears, hands raised slightly. Aziraphale was still lying there, but his eyes were open, staring back at him.

“Uh,” Crowley said, “Hi. Sorry. Didn’t mean to, er, interrupt, whatever you’re doing– Actually, what the Heaven _are_ you doing?”

Aziraphale stared blankly at him. Crowley started to have Regrets about coming to find the angel. Aziraphale had been in the middle of _something,_ apparently. And now Crowley was trapped here, pinned, having intruded on this _thing_ that he clearly wasn’t meant to have seen, and–

Aziraphale reached up, and grasped his hand. His hand burned, burned, _burned._ The pain shot up his arm, hit him in the chest, and then continued into his brain, a screeching cacophony of hurt.

Crowley’s eyes went so wide behind his glasses that his eyelids practically invented new creases in order to accommodate the wideness.

“Uh, Aziraphale,” he said, his hand and heart and head still burning with holy retribution, “What–”

Aziraphale tugged his hand, and Crowley fell. He fell onto him, onto the narrow-ass squeaky-ass excuse of a bed. He felt a bruising pain all down his body as he landed on Aziraphale, felt the pain as Aziraphale drew him up and hugged him, arms wrapping around his back, felt the pain as his cheek pressed against Aziraphale’s chest.

He was frozen there, locked in agony inside and out, and felt Aziraphale breathing, beneath him.

“I’m sorry, dear,” said Aziraphale, “I don’t mean to hurt you. I can’t help it.”

Not a single coherent thought was currently managing to formulate itself in Crowley’s mind.

“Angel?” he whispered, and Aziraphale clutched him tighter.

Aziraphale was shaking, slightly. Crowley finally gathered enough of his wits (five wits, to be precise) to push himself up off Aziraphale, put some space between their bodies so that they weren’t all lined up with pain. His wrist burned, a bit, where it pressed against Aziraphale’s arm. He stared down at the angel. Blood rushed in his head. His heart a-thunder in his chest.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked, and the words came out breathlessly, quietly.

Aziraphale stared up at him. He raised one hand, which brushed Crowley’s shoulder, twinging a little. The angel slowly removed Crowley’s glasses. Crowley averted his gaze.

“I don’t want the world to end, love,” said Aziraphale.

_Love._

“L-love?” Crowley repeated. And then immediately wished he hadn’t. If he said it, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard it. He was suddenly convinced that he was going to die, here and now, from the pure emotional stress of it all.

Aziraphale was silent. Crowley looked up at him again, saw that the angel was still staring into his face, into his eyes.

“You know,” said Aziraphale, slowly, folding up Crowley’s glasses with one hand, setting them carefully aside beside his head, “Who’s to say what is Ineffable? Isn’t that what Ineffable means?”

“What exactly are you saying? You’re rather worrying me,” said Crowley, and moved to get out of the bed, but Aziraphale grasped his wrist, tightly, over his sleeve, to stop him. It burned, vaguely. Aziraphale let go. Crowley remained deathly still.

He suddenly felt as though all his senses were on hyper-alert. He stared at Aziraphale’s face, saw the way Aziraphale’s eyes were flicking back and forth over Crowley’s face. Saw Aziraphale’s throat work as he swallowed, heard the slight unevenness to Aziraphale’s breathing.

“What’s going on, Aziraphale?” he asked, and his voice didn't shake, but it sounded like it wanted to.

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, and cautiously touched Crowley’s hand (burning, burning), guided it to rest against Aziraphale’s own face. He was touching Aziraphale’s face. It hurt so badly.

Aziraphale stared up at him, and his eyes started to water. A tear fell back against the mattress from the corner of one eye. Crowley snatched his hand away.

“It’s hurting you, too?” Crowley asked, mouth dry.

Aziraphale grabbed his hand again, brought it up to his face, eyes watering anew. “Crowley, please,” he said, “touch me.”

At this moment, Crowley could have sworn that someone had just shot him in the sternum, point-blank, with an actual gun. He’d been wrong before. _Now this,_ this was what would surely kill him. 

“I’m hurting you,” said Crowley, blankly, and stroked a thumb across Aziraphale’s cheekbone. Aziraphale winced, and his eyes fluttered closed. Crowley pulled his stinging hand back, and the angel’s eyes snapped back open.

“Angel, I can’t.”

“Please,” Aziraphale insisted, and reached up with both hands, and pulled Crowley closer again. “Listen. The world is going to end, isn’t it?”

“Are you trying to fuck me because the world is going to end?” Crowley asked. He realized he sounded hysterical. This was because he was, in fact, hysterical.

“Hush! Listen. The world is supposed to end, and we’re not supposed to touch each other, and I’m… I’m losing my mind, Crowley. We can pretend this never happened. I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.”

Aziraphale pushed him away, two palms against his chest, bruising pain.

“No, I mean. That’s not. _Shit,_ ” hissed Crowley, leaning away from the pain in his chest. “Goddamn it. Did you call me _love?”_

“Yes, love,” said Aziraphale, wretchedly, “I’ve fallen for you. I fell for you ages ago, by degrees and dimensions, despite myself, despite everything.”

“Oh… we’re both _so_ fucked,” whispered Crowley, “We’re extremely, unilaterally fucked.”

“Stop joking!”

“I’m not joking!” said Crowley, desperately, his heart hammered in his chest, apparently trying to make a jailbreak right out of his ribcage. “I just– _Fuck,_ Aziraphale. Please don’t be _sorry,_ and, and don’t be upset, _please,_ but I’m. _I’m_ sorry. I’m just. I can’t do this.”

He bolted.

~

Angels are beings of love. It’s one of their fundamental characteristics. They are created to love, to love God, to love Creation, to love Humanity. They are made to love, and they are made of love.

Many things happened to Crowley when he Fell. For an angel to transform into a demon there’s a whole set of changes that must occur. A metamorphoses, if you will.

The most drastic of changes that occurs to an angel when it Falls, is that it loses its ability to love.

This was something that Crowley was well aware of, and on the very rare and particularly cold, lonely evening, it troubles him quite a lot. That he is a creature unloved, unloving, and unlovable. The best cure he’s found for this is to take a hot shower, drink a bucket of hot, oversugared coffee, and take a long nap. When he wakes from the nap, he drinks another bucket of coffee, and terrorizes his houseplants a bit, and gives Azirphale a call. 

And, miracle of miracles. The malaise of lovelessness is all but cured.

~

Aziraphale stared at the empty space that Crowley had occupied just moments before. He could practically see the Crowley-shaped cloud of fine dust that had been sucked into the vaccum of the space.

He covered his face with both hands.

“Stupid,” he said, aloud.

 _Oof,_ said the Voice in his head.

“Be quiet,” said Aziraphale, weakly.

 _I mean, you tried,_ said the Voice, _Good on you. So maybe he doesn’t love you back after all. That’s not your fault. But I could’ve sworn my left nut–_

“Be. Quiet,” said Aziraphale, forcefully this time. The Voice fell silent. Aziraphale was determined to keep that voice shut up for the rest of eternity. Or at least until the end of the world, when it wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

He pulled his hands away from his face, and saw that his palms were wet. Angrily, he wiped at his eyes. When that proved ineffective, he miracled up a pillow and hugged it against his face.

“Oh, bugger,” he said, into the pillow, voice muffled and cracking. He allowed himself about an hour of wallowing in self-pity, and then put the pillow down, and got up out of bed.

He went unsteadily into the bookshop and turned the _Closed_ sign to _Open,_ and went and fetched a bottle of wine from the back room. He brought the bottle into the shop, and leaned heavily against a bookshelf, and started drinking, sullenly.

He was an angel. He was made of love. And other positive things. By God he was going to drag himself and his thoughts back out of this pit of rejection and disappointment.

He took a swig straight from the bottle, and glared at the front door.

Aziraphale and Crowley had gone through rough patches in their relationship before. You couldn't go six thousand years of being frenemies with a demon, without having rough patches. There was that time, the worst time, quite early on, when they were still more like true enemies, when Crowley deliberately tried to make Aziraphale Fall. Their relationship had survived that. There was the time, in the eighteen hundreds, when Crowley had asked for Holy Water and Aziraphale didn’t talk to him for a full century. They’d survived that. Aziraphale had _given_ Crowley the holy water. They’d survived that.

He brooded, angelically. He drank, slightly less angelically. A customer came into the bookshop, causing the bell tied to the door to jangle brightly. The customer swept their gaze around, smiling faintly at all the books. Upon catching Aziraphale’s eye, their smile evaporated. They turned and retreated hurriedly out of the store.

But was this different? Was it different, because it was Aziraphale who had made the transgression, who had confessed his heart, who had asked something of Crowley that Crowley was apparently unwilling or unable to give?

Aziraphale gritted his teeth, and stared straight ahead. Maybe. Maybe not. But this time, they didn’t have an eternity to sort it out. They couldn’t just not talk for a hundred years and then carry on like they’d both forgotten about the incident.

The world was ending in eleven years. They had work to do. There was an antichrist to influence.

Aziraphale wondered if this was what it was like to be mortal. To be hyper-aware of the clock ticking in the background. He didn't much like it. He took another swig of wine.

About an hour later, another customer came into the bookshop. Aziraphale didn’t manage a smile at them, but they didn’t immediately retreat upon looking at him, and instead went on to browse idly about the shop.

Progress.

~

Crowley beelined straight home from Aziraphale’s bookshop. He kicked his front door in, dramatically, and stomped into the kitchen, dramatically, and took down a big, heavy cooking pot, which he slammed upon the stovetop, dramatically, and twisted on the flame, dramatically.

He filled the pot with water, and got out the bulk bag of ground instant coffee, and dumped the whole lot into the pot. Dramatically.

He then strode into his bathroom, and turned the shower on has high and hot as it would go (which was very high, and in fact broke local regulation in both water flow and temperature). He stripped, and stepped into the shower, and forcefully slammed his forehead against the marble wall. Dramatically. The marble wall fractured. He leaned back and observed the crack with dismay.

The water pounded down on his head, his body. It was so hot it burned, painfully. It was only because he was a demon, and therefore very sturdy where heat and fire are concerned, that he was still standing upright. A mere human would be suffering actual burns at this point. He stared at the crack in the wall. He didn’t have the desire nor energy to miracle it away.

He ran two hands through his soaking-wet hair, pulling fistfuls of it tight, feeling the pain of it. He stared at the crack in the wall.

_Crowley, please. Touch me._

He shuddered.

_Love._

He let go of his hair. He let one hand travel to his mouth, pressed a thumb across his lips. He let his other hand travel lower, and stared at the crack in the wall, and did not picture Aziraphale lying under him, eyes fluttering closed, whispering, _“Please,”_ smiling through the pain of their very touch.

He leaned his forehead back against the marble wall, and wrapped a hand around his flushed cock, and stroked himself, slowly, and then faster, toes curling, brows knitting, and he absolutely did not think of Aziraphale as he came.

Crowley stalked out of the shower (dramatically), and put on an extremely plush black bathrobe and even plusher black slippers, and went back to the kitchen, and poured a full pound of sugar into the pot of boiling-hot coffee. He stirred the mixture, irritably, and then turned off the stove and picked up the scorching-hot pot with his bare hands, and retreated to his bedroom. He sat there in the dark. Cross-legged, leaning against the ornate headboard.

He drank the coffee in the dark. It filled him inside with sweet, burning heat. When he was done, he carefully set the empty pot on the nightstand, and tucked himself under the covers, and went to sleep.

He tried to go to sleep.

He couldn’t go to sleep.

It wasn’t the coffee. Coffee didn’t have an effect on him unless he specifically desired it to, which he didn’t.

He should be able to fall asleep instantly. His bed was perfectly calibrated for perfect comfort. The mattress was the sort of memory foam they did annoying ads about in podcasts, and which was delivered by mail in a box and inflated itself and was exactly like sleeping on a cloud, if only he could remember what sleeping on a cloud felt like. His duvet was stuffed with Eiderdown. His pillows were just firm enough, just the right thickness.

There was no reason he shouldn’t be able to fall asleep. He was definitely not thinking about Aziraphale’s sad excuse for a bedroom. He was absolutely not thinking about Aziraphale sleeping in that pitiful excuse for a bedroom. And he was positively _not thinking_ about lying with Aziraphale in that certifiably tragic excuse for a bedroom.

_Love._

His best coping mechanisms were failing him. How _dare_ they.

He crushed an armful of his Eiderdown comforter against his face and groaned in frustration.

Aziraphale deserved everything, was the thing. He deserved better than a half-baked demon who couldn’t love. The last thing Crowley wanted to do was break his angel’s heart. But how was he supposed to explain himself?

He pulled the blanket away from his face. “Well, angel,” he said, bitterly, into the darkness, “Here’s the thing. You. You lo-. Me. But I don’t love y–. I _can’t_ love.”

He imagined the look on Aziraphale’s face, and wilted.

“Look,” he said, to Aziraphale’s imagined heartbroken face, “I really like you. You’re the only bastard on this bitch of an Earth whose presence doesn’t make me want to bite my own face off.”

Imaginary Aziraphale’s face perked up a bit, but still looked weepy.

“Bless it,” swore Crowley, “ _Aziraphale._ I can’t help it, alright? I’m a demon.”

Imaginary Aziraphale’s face was crumpling again.

“Oh, fuck you,” said Crowley, and then violently regretted it, even if it had only been said to Imaginary Aziraphale. _“Urggghhhh.”_ He tugged a pillow down over his head. “For fucks sake! Hey, God! Go suck a tit!”[2] 

~

Aziraphale kept the bookstore open all day, and then all night, and all the next day. People came, and went. One customer attempted to purchase an early-edition Wilde, which he summarily thwarted. Another was very tenacious in her attempt to acquire a very old tome on Practical Witchcraft. He was unable to shake her off, especially since she had somehow managed to locate the book on her own and whisk it into her clutches while he leaned on a bookshelf, drinking, spiraling back miserably into thoughts about Crowley. This customer was one of Aziraphale’s arch-nemeses. Of all the times for her to visit.

He very reluctantly and very belligerently took her through the transaction. When she wasn't looking, he miracled up a copy of the book and snatched back the original under the guise of wrapping it up in a protective sheet of black wrapping paper. She protested this, but he insisted that the book needed to be properly protected from the elements. It wasn’t really fair play, but he was desperate. It was a real delicate miracle, too, copying over an ancient book with precious few others in existence. It wasn’t likely to work perfectly, and it was certainly against code. If his bosses noticed, he would have a hell of a time explaining to them why it had been necessary to miracle up a copy of a book of witchcraft.

Well, at least he was quite good at sleight of hand. He managed the switch even as the woman glared at him suspiciously through the whole process. 

She left with her prize. Aziraphale glared after her retreating back, and then eyeballed the mostly-empty bottle of wine sitting next to his register. He sighed, corked it, and flipped the sign on the door to _Closed._

He put on his coat, and went out. He had to go sort this thing out with Crowley. It wasn’t a matter of choice. If it _had_ been a matter of choice, he would’ve put it off until the two of them accidentally-on-purpose ran into each other again, and then he would’ve acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, Maybe then the two of them would get lunch together, or something. They would never discuss the incident again. But it was the end of the world, they didn’t have the time. Though if it hadn’t been the end of the world, he wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place.

He was about a mile into his walk when he realized that he didn’t actually know where Crowley was. He also didn’t actually know where Crowley’s flat was. It was possible that his subconscious expectations would have steered him in the right direction. But now that he’d made himself aware of the predicament, he was lost.

It was drizzling slightly. He stopped under a lonely, and rather spindly city tree which did little to shield him from the rain, and took his cellular phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open, and squinted down at the tiny screen.

Crowley had texted him almost a month ago, asking to go for lunch.

He squinted at the tiny, pixelated text for a good thirty seconds. He snapped the cellular phone closed, and stuffed it back into his pocket.

It could wait, he decided. Maybe it couldn’t wait as long as it could usually wait, but it could wait a little longer. He turned up the collar of his coat, and headed back to the bookshop.

~

Five years later, and maybe it could wait a little longer still, but it really shouldn’t.

They hadn’t spoken at all in the five years since the incident. At this point, Aziraphale desperately wished he had not waited so long. Now the silence stretched between them, a chasm that felt insurmountable. Did Crowley hate him, now? Had Aziraphale truly ruined the precious friendship they’d had, after all? Five years wasn’t technically such a long stretch for them to go without contact, but the context of the silence made Aziraphale want to rip all his hair out.

Aziraphale sat perfectly still in the back room of his bookshop, clutching his cellular phone with dangerous force. He was willing Crowley to text him again, but it just wasn’t working.

He stared at the text of Crowley asking to go to lunch.

Why did _he_ have to be the one to break the silence? Crowley had been the one to suggest they both influence the antichrist. Crowley had been the one who was so insistent that they must forestall the end of the world.

But it had been five years. Time was running out.

Aziraphale pressed the tiny keypad number 9. “W”

He then got up and fixed himself some tea.

He came back, and steeled himself all over again, and pressed the tiny number 3, twice. “E”

He set the mobile phone aside, and slowly drank the full cup of tea, and poured himself another miserable cup.

It took him approximately forty hours of beeping slowly through the cellular phone’s buttons, of getting up and fixing tea, of deleting the message and starting over, of doing little chores and errands that didn’t really need doing. By the end of it, he was an utter wreck, he had consumed two gallons of tea, and his bookshop and back room were tidier than they had been even when the shop had first opened.

AZ: “WE NEED TO TALK.”

And then, he panicked, and smashed out another message, sending it just a minute after the first.

AZ: “ABOUT THE ANTICRHST.”

He got up and poured himself a well-deserved shot of whiskey, and knocked it back.

When he put down the glass down, his cellular phone buzzed with a message from Crowley.

CR: “ya.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Aziraphale, furiously, and dialed Crowley’s number before he could lose what precious nerve he still had left.

~

The first day as the Dowling’s gardener would have been tremendously boring, if it hadn’t also been the first time Aziraphale had seen Crowley since the incident.

Nanny Ashtoreth looked at once exactly like Crowley always did, and yet so utterly different. It was a good look on him. On her. Either or. They shared one (1) polite nod at each other when Nanny Ashtoreth took little Warlock for a walk the gardens.

“Hello,” said the boy, to Aziraphale. Aziraphale smiled in return, about to introduce himself when Nanny cut in.

“You don’t need to waste your time greeting the help, young Master,” she said.

Aziraphale looked at her, shocked. But then, this was what they were doing, right? Reading Crowley’s face behind those glasses was a challenge, but Aziraphale had had a great deal of practice. He could have sworn that Crowley glanced at him apologetically. But maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Warlock turned his young, soulful eyes on Nanny, and asked, “Why not?”

“All the world is only fit to serve you,” said Nanny, who was holding Warlock’s hand. “Courtesy is how the weak like to plead for mercy and dress it up as a virtue.”

“Now, now,” said Brother Francis, getting down on one knee so that his eyes were level with Warlock’s, “It’s always good to be polite. Good morning, young Warlock. My name is Brother Francis. It’s wonderful to meet you.”

“You see?” said Nanny.

Warlock shook his head, confused.

“It can be a tough world out there,” said Brother Francis, “We’ve got to help each other out, and be kind to each other, don’t we?”

Warlock nodded, slowly. He didn’t much look like an antichrist to Aziraphale. For all appearances, he might as well have been a perfectly normal five-year-old human boy.

“Utter tosh,” said Nanny, and led the boy away. Warlock waved goodbye, which Brother Francis returned with a wide grin.

~

A week into their new jobs as unofficial godfathers to the antichrist, Aziraphale received a text from Crowley.

CR: “meet at the temperance & crow shit pub?”

AZ: “THAT CANNOT ACTUALLY BE A REAL PLACE”

CR: “see you in an hour”

Aziraphale checked the clock. It was a quarter-past nine.

When he arrived at the pub, Crowley was already there. She was seated at a booth, beer in hand, hat hung up on an imitation electric candlestick. The pub itself was still busy, but not crowded. The general background noise was loud, but not unbearable. Modern music was playing from a speaker in the corner. People were talking, laughing.

“Brother Francis,” Crowley said crisply, as Aziraphale took a seat across from her. Their feet knocked together, painfully. Aziraphale quickly tucked his feet under the booth.

Crowley gestured at a full stein of beer that was waiting on the table. Aziraphale took it into his hands, but did not drink.

They sat there for a while, neither of them drinking. At one point, Crowley ordered another round, which neither of them touched.

“Well this is awkward,” said Crowley, finally. She smiled a wry sort of smile.

Aziraphale sighed. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry about–”

“I told you, don’t be sorry,” said Crowley. She finally took a sip of beer, and then grimaced. “This is piss.”

Aziraphale snorted.

“I didn’t know it hurt you, too,” she said, quietly. Aziraphale stilled. He stared down at his stein of piss-beer. Maybe if he didn’t move, Crowley wouldn’t see him. That was how snakes worked, wasn’t it?

“Angel,” said Crowley, and Aziraphale looked up. She was fidgeting, the fingers of one hand tapping erratically against her glass of beer. The other hand rested on the table, twitching occasionally. “I’ve got to tell you something.”

Aziraphale stared. Crowley continued to fidget. She made an angry sort of noise, and then chugged down the full glass of beer.

“Oh, fuck, that’s disgusting,” she said, and reached for a second mug.

“Really, dear?” Aziraphale asked, smiling, as Crowley downed a second glass.

“Shut up,” muttered Crowley, putting down the second glass, heavily. “Fuck this eight ways. I can’t do this.”

She reached for a third glass of beer. Without thinking, Aziraphale stopped her, put his hand over hers. She wore gloves, so it didn’t hurt so much.

“Oh, shoot,” said Aziraphale, and tried to pull away, but Crowley had grasped onto his hand, the smooth glove a steady, muffled burning against his skin.

The two of them stared at their clasped hands, resting on the pub table.

“Hell’s got nothing on this,” said Crowley, tonelessly, “Hell doesn’t know jack shit about suffering. We just try to imitate the shit the humans do to each other, don’t we? And we don’t do it very well.”

Aziraphale’s nervous energy bubbled out in a laugh. “Crowley?”

“Angel. Listen, and try not to think anything until I finish.”

“Alright?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley took in a deep breath. He let out a deep breath. He took in a deep breath.

Aziraphale waited, patiently. Patience was a virtue, after all. He was stuffed absolutely full of virtues. He was an angel.

“I don’t care about Heaven or Hell or any of it,” she began. Her words rushed together, apparently eager to get out the door now that the door was finally open, “Who wins, who loses? It matters less than the price of, of, of ice in in the arctic circle, because you know I don’t pay for anything anyway. It’s a matter of pride for me, at this point, and I’m _definitely_ not going to pay for this shit beer.”

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, gently, because he sensed that things were getting off track.

“Right,” she said, tightening her burning grip on Aziraphale’s hand, “Sorry. My point. Ah. Like I said. Everything that matters at all is here on Earth, isn’t it? All these lovely, stupid human people and their automobiles and their shit beer and their music. And.”

She paused, took another deep breath.

“And you.”

She stopped, for a second. For ten seconds. Aziraphale could feel his heart beating, could feel his hand burning, could feel his head filling up with a warm, fizzy feeling. All the noise and bustle in the pub had receded. There was nothing else but this booth, and Crowley.

Crowley muttered something to herself, and groped awkwardly with her free hand for the third mug of beer. Aziraphale caught her hand in his, laid it down on the table next to the other, holding tight.

Crowley groaned, and stomped her foot audibly under the table. “Aziraphale!” she hissed, “I'm _dying,_ here, I swear. You’re _killing_ me.”

“You told me I’m not allowed to think anything until you’re finished,” said Aziraphale, “On God, you’re going to finish.”

Crowley pouted, her glasses slipping down her nose so that a sliver of her yellow snake-eyes peeked over the top. Aziraphale saw that they’d gone full yellow, that the pupils had widened.

“I don’t know how much you know about the nature of demons,” said Crowley, talking even faster now, “But we don’t _love._ We can’t love.”

Aziraphale was thinking no thoughts, as instructed, but he felt a bolt of ice in his heart. His grip on her hands tightened. The burning intensified.

“You told me you loved me and I couldn’t handle it, angel, because I can’t reciprocate, and the last thing I wanted on this Earth was to do that to you. Because, you’re my friend, and, actually you’re probably _more_ than my friend, technically speaking, but as much as I care about you I’m just not built that way. I’m not built to love, they took that from me. And usually I don’t give two shits about it, but, I mean, shit, nevermind that. Just. Do you see? Fucking Hell doesn’t _-know-a-God-damned-thing-about-suffering–”_

Crowley degenerated into insane-sounding muttering, and slammed her head against the bar table, between two arms outstretched, two hands clutching Aziraphale’s hands, a blooming of pain in their contact.

“Are you finished?” Aziraphale heard himself say, as if from a distance.

“I don't know,” Crowley mumbled, face still firmly glued to the table, “Do you hate me yet?”

“My lo–” Aziraphale stopped himself. “My dear boy. I could never hate you. It’s all right.”

Crowley tilted her face up, so that her head leaned against one shoulder, and looked up at Aziraphale. Her glasses were dangling for dear life from the tip of her nose. Her pupils had blown so wide that her eyes looked nearly black.

“If you’ll permit me to say it,” Aziraphale said softly, “I do love you. But you don’t have to. You’re enough as you are.”

“You’re going to make me cry, you bitch,” Crowley whispered. Her eyes did look rather shining.

Aziraphale frowned. “Now, there’s really no need for that kind of sexist language.”

“I’m a woman right now, I can say what I want,” said Crowley. And then, as an afterthought, “Cunt.”

_“Crowley!”_

“It’s Nanny. Now give me one of my hands back. I _need_ a drink or I’ll _die.”_

~

They fell back into their usual rhythm. Actually, they fell back into a greater-than-usual rhythm, what with their attempts to strategically co-parent a pint-size antichrist into a relatively neutral force for only mild destruction. Crowley spent a lot of time coming outside and criticizing Aziraphale’s gardening methods.

“Slugs are _pests,”_ Nanny Ashtoreth would hiss, “You’ve got to salt them to death on the spot. It’s like you don’t know the first thing about gardening.”

“They’re God’s creations, same as the rest of us,” Brother Francis protested.

Aziraphale spent just as much time criticizing Crowley’s nannying.

“He’s only _seven,_ you can’t show him Nightmare on Elm Street!”

“I can and I did. It was a teaching moment.”

“He hasn’t gone outside in a week!”

“He’ll be fine by the time his mother gets back from Italy.”

And occasionally, the Dowlings would take a vacation to visit family or friends back in America, and the two of them would be left to their own devices. As the years wore on and the shadow of Armageddon drew nearer, Aziraphale’s secret mental catalogue of Touches increased by an order of magnitude. There were infinite ways to feel pain, between the two of them.

But that didn’t stop them.

~

It was the eve of Warlock Dowling’s birthday. Tomorrow, he would be eleven. The end would begin. In the past week, Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis had withdrawn from Warlock’s life. Very soon, they would find out if their work had been for naught.

Crowley and Aziraphale sat in Aziraphale’s backroom, watching the clock tick ever-closer towards midnight. Crowley had a celebratory bottle of champagne at the ready. A really good champagne.

“I’ve got déjà-vu,” said Aziraphale suddenly. Crowley looked at him.

“Bless you,” he said.

“You _know_ what déjà-vu is,” said Aziraphale.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Crowley, and turned his gaze back to the clock. It was ten seconds from midnight. He started shaking the bottle of champagne.

“No, stop that. You’ll make a mess,” Aziraphale protested. If a single drop of champagne got on any of his books, he would be _very_ cross.

“What did you think I was going to _do_ with a bottle of champagne?” Crowley demanded.

The clock struck midnight. The champagne cork burst forth, spilling foam all down Crowley’s hand. He raised the bottle to his mouth, licked the spilled champagne.

Aziraphale watched him lick the champagne. Something twisted and coiled and twisted inside him at the sight, snakelike. Crowley caught him looking, and smirked. Aziraphale looked away.

Crowley poured them each a flute of champagne, and handed one to Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s hand brushed against his (electric, excruciating) as he took the glass.

“Have you decided yet what you’re going to do if little Warlock goes all _death and destruction_ on us?” Crowley asked, sipping the champagne.

Aziraphale was silent. He played with the champagne flute, nervously, set it aside.

“We can’t _kill_ him,” he said.

“Well, _I’m_ not going to kill him,” said Crowley, “Killing kids is a no for me. Always has been. You know that.” He paused, considered. “I’ll make an exception if the kid is a real asshole. But I can’t kill Warlock, asshole or not. I practically raised him at my own breast.”

Aziraphale frowned at him. “But you’re the demon. I’m an _angel.”_

“Yeah, so?” said Crowley, and sipped some more champagne. “Angels smite. Historically, they've smote. Smited? Smought?”

“Oh, shut it,” said Aziraphale, irritably, “For all that you enjoy this Earth and all its, its _amenities,”_ his eyes flickered up to meet Crowley’s, flickered away, “You’re not actually willing to do what it would take to stop the End, are you?”

Crowley scowled. He flicked the champagne flute out of his hand. It landed, with a miraculous wobble, unspilled, on a nearby stack of books. “You know it’s not that simple. You really _are_ a bastard deep down, aren’t you?”

Aziraphale sniffed. “I’m just trying to figure out if you’re actually just a heartless demon or not. Or if there’s actually some shred of love in you, after all.”

Crowley stiffened. “That’s low, angel.”

Aziraphale glared at him, and then sighed. He reached for his champagne flute, and then appeared to think better of it.

They were silent, for a bit.

“Sorry,” said Aziraphale.

“I should go,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale did not protest.

Crowley left.

Aziraphale looked at the unfinished champagne.

“Oh, fuck,” he said to himself. 

There was hardly any time left to fix what he’d said.

 _Why do you always do this,_ said the Voice. Aziraphale started. He hadn’t heard from it in a while. Angrily, he shut it up, and corked the undrunk champagne, and went to take a nap. This time, though, he set an alarm. He had a birthday party to perform at, after all.

~

The Hellhound did not appear at Warlock’s birthday, the next day.

They had the wrong child.

~

Crowley was just two ticks away from a blind panic. He was beyond In Trouble. He was beyond Saving. He was beyond anything at all, unless they could find the real antichrist. And even _then…_

He didn’t know what to do.

But then Aziraphale had the idea to drive back to the nunnery and look for the child’s birth records. This was a brilliant idea, of course, but Crowley was not in any mood to go on a little road trip with Aziraphale, much less a road trip whose objective was to find the missing antichrist, the source of the almost-panic. This was far too many stressors for Crowley to deal with. The angel _knew_ better than to have said those things to him. He _knew,_ and he’d said it anyway. Aziraphale really was a bastard.

A bastard who was bastard enough to pout at Crowley when he got paint on his coat. And _Crowley_ was _nice_ enough to fix it for him. Crowley seethed, as the two of them went into the nunnery.

“You know,” Aziraphale said, “I always knew, deep down, that you really were nice–”

Crowley rounded on him, grabbed him by the lapels (burning, pain), shoved him, pressed him against the wall (bruising, pain), hissed in his face, 

“Don’t _say_ that! I’m a _demon!_ I’m not _nice!”_

Aziraphale stared back a him. His eyes were wide, but unafraid. He was never afraid, not of Crowley. Crowley pressed closer, pressed the pain closer.

How dare he. How _dare_ he. Was that what passed as an apology, in Aziraphale’s mind? What kind of absolute dickhead _was_ he? Aziraphale, staring back at him, evenly, his coat scorching Crowley’s hands, his body a line of heat and hurt all the way down Crowley’s body, and Crowley felt his stupid heartrate accelerating, his stupid heart–

“Excuse me, gentlemen–”

It turned out there were no birth records.

They got back into the Bentley, and headed back to London.

The sun had just barely started to set, when Aziraphale spoke.

“Crowley.”

Crowley grunted. He gripped the steering wheel, tightly. Here it comes.

“I’m really tremendously sorry,” Aziraphale said, “I don’t know why I say those things to you that I never should have said.”

Crowley grunted, again. He kept his gaze focused on the road. He hoped this annoyed Aziraphale. At any other time, his gaze focused on the road would have surely made Aziraphale happy.

“I’m just, I’m so afraid of everything ending. And, and it’s no excuse, but. Oh, for the _love_ of all that’s Holy, could you please pull over? Or at the very least slow down?”

Crowley was already flooring the accelerator. With the help of a minor miracle, he pressed his foot down further on the pedal, pushed the accelerator beyond it’s physical limit.

“Jesus _Christ,_ Crowley,” said Aziraphale who actually sounded frightened, and then suddenly the Bentley trembled under Crowley’s grip, and all at once the car was at once speeding up and slowing down, dragged in opposite quantum directions.

“Are you _seriously_ trying to miracle this car to a stop?” Crowley demanded, incredulously, “You’ll make us explode!”

 _“Please,_ slow down!” Aziraphale begged.

Crowley slowed down, because he couldn't not give his angel anything he wanted.

They rolled to a stop on the side of a wooded road. They idled there, in silence.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Aziraphale, “and _yes,_ I _know_ it’s my fault, but we’ve got hardly any time left. I didn’t mean what I said, Crowley. I was being stupid. I’m sorry. I’ll never say it again.”

Crowley sighed, dropped his hands from the steering wheel, “I know, angel. This... It's this blasted Armageddon. Imagine, we could’ve gone another million millennia just pretending not to touch each other." He sighed, again, angry. "It would all have continued to be what it always was, and we could’ve gone on like that, it would've been _so easy,_ without hurting each other’s feelings all the blessed time.”

A beat. Two beats. “If it takes the world ending for us to have gotten where we are now,” said Aziraphale, shakily, “then so be it.”

Crowley turned to look at him, shocked.

Aziraphale had closed the gap between them[3]. And then Crowley was being kissed.

It hurt, so very badly. Aziraphale kissed him, openly, desperately, breathlessly, painfully, and somehow the searing pain was also pleasure. He could kiss Aziraphale forever, probably. Aziraphale had a hand clutching at the side of Crowley’s face, burning alight, an infinite ache.

Crowley rushed forward, pushed Aziraphale over onto his back, balanced precariously on the front seat of the car, but he would make it work, and he kissed Aziraphale under his jaw, and Aziraphale gasped, twisting under him, a cosmic, yawning, burning light. He dragged a tongue across Aziraphale’s hammering pulse, and Aziraphale pushed his hands under Crowley’s shirt, dragging fingers and fingernails across his skin, and it _hurt,_ it _hurt,_ it _hurt so good._

Damn this pain, this thing that had stopped them from physically reaching out to each other for six thousand years. Damn their very natures as an angel and a demon. Damn the Almighty, for having created them this way. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair.

They would do it anyway.

Crowley pulled back from Aziraphale, whose had one hand under his shirt, burning what felt like a hole through his chest. This was Falling, all over again. But worse, but better, because Aziraphale was here with him.

“Crowley?”

Crowley focused everything he had, every scrap of imagination and ability, to make the pain go away. One massive miracle, a crime against Gods’s designs, a change to end all others. But Aziraphale’s hand continued to scorch against his chest.

“It’s not fair,” he said, weakly. He reached up, and pulled at the tie at the angel’s throat, his hand smarting a bit as he did so. And Aziraphale stared up at him, eyes clear and open and unafraid, trusting. Trusting Crowley not to, well, not to not _hurt_ him, technically, but perhaps neither of them were made for technicalities.

 _Why now?_ Crowley wanted to ask of him, but didn’t, because they both knew why now. The tie came free, and Crowley undid one button, and then the next, and then the next, and then the next, revealing an agonizing stretch of skin from Aziraphale’s throat to just below his collarbone. _Why now?_

“Why have you got so many _Infernal_ buttons?” Crowley hissed, but Aziraphale only giggled in response. He leaned down, and tasted the dip between Aziraphale’s collarbones, and it burned his tongue anew, and Aziraphale sucked in a shocked breath, twitched violently beneath him, as if trying to pull away.

Crowley pulled away, quickly, “Fuck, sorry.”

“No, don’t be. Don’t you dare stop,” Aziraphale snarled. This shocked Crowley into silence (Aziraphale was not one to _snarl_ ), and he lowered his face to Aziraphale’s chest again, undoing more buttons, trailing aching, angry kisses as he went.

He reached the angel’s belly, pressed his face against it, feeling the angel’s warmth, his softness through the screaming hurt. Aziraphale was panting, now, hands fisted in Crowley’s clothes, practically vibrating.

Much as he wanted to, Crowley didn’t think he had it in himself to undo Aziraphale’s pants, to bring that searing pain to such a sensitive place. Instead he crawled back up, and kissed Aziraphale on the mouth, and pressed a thigh between Aziraphales legs, hard. Aziraphale’s head fell back, his eyes rolling up in his skull, a broken moan shuddering out of him, his hips stuttering, twisting, and then twisting away. 

“T-t-too much,” whispered Aziraphale.

“Sorry,” hissed Crowley, backing off, “I’m sorry, shit, sorry.”

“No, I mean,” said Aziraphale, and snapped his fingers, and then there was a tartan blanket between them. Aziraphale wrapped both legs around Crowley’s hips, and drew him in close, and bit down on Crowley’s shoulder, through his shirt, a faint bruising pain, grinding against him, and Crowley saw little flickering stars.

“I’m–” hissed Crowley, thrusting through the blanket against Aziraphale, who was making short little keening noises each time he did, “You’re. Going to, going, to, _you’re gonna,_ oh my Go– , you’ll be the _death_ of me, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale latched his mouth onto Crowley’s neck, dragged his nails against Crowley’s back.

“Angel,” Crowley hissed, hips stuttering. It was all happening so quickly. He was blinded on every side by hurt, and by how _good_ it was, despite the hurt, “I’m gonna–”

Aziraphale disengaged his burning mouth from Crowley’s neck with a pop, moved a hand to grab Crowley tightly by his hair, fingers searing against his scalp. “No! Not yet. Keep. Going.”

Crowley groaned, guttural, and redoubled the force of his hips, fucking Aziraphale ruthlessly against the seat of the Bentley, his whole body lit like a firebrand, oversensitive, overtaxed.

And then Aziraphale tightened his hold on him, shaking, shivering, gasping as he came, and then fell slack, his hand slipping from Crowley’s hair and falling against the blanket between them. 

Aziraphale breathed, heavily. His face was tilted to the side, hair an absolute mess, eyes half-lidded, and he breathed, “Crowley, dear. That was lovely.”

Crowley came, whole body at once numb and electrified, whiting out.

He woke up. He found himself wrapped up in the tartan blanket like a cocoon, with just his face peeking out. Aziraphale had Crowley tucked up against him, one arm around his shoulders, a distant sort of throbbing pain. His other hand held a book, which he read by Bentley’s weak interior light.

“Hey,” said Crowley.

“Hello,” said Aziraphale, idly.

“Hey, remember a while back when I said we were fucked?” asked Crowley.

Aziraphale made a _hmmm_ -ing noise.

“Well, now we are definitely, irrevocably fucked,” said Crowley.

“I think you mean we _have_ fucked,” said Aziraphale, vaguely. He somehow turned a page in is book one-handed. He didn’t do it with a miracle, either. Just sheer dexterity. Something twinged in Crowley, at the thought.

“Just so you know, I’m not doing that again for a while,” said Crowley, “I am dead serious when I say it’s a miracle I didn’t die.”

“Fortunately for you I have a few of those to spare,” said Aziraphale, “And also the world is ending pretty imminently, so we may not have the time anyway. Let me know when you’re ready to drive us back to London.”

“As soon as I get out of this stupid blanket,” said Crowley, wriggling impotently, “How the _Hell_ did you even do this to me.”

Aziraphale helped unwind him from the blanket, and then they went on their way.

They took a detour to hit a witch on a bicycle and then deliver her home.

~

Armageddon arrived.

Armageddon failed, due to no particular effort on the part of Aziraphale nor Crowley. Oh, how they’d tried. But it hadn’t mattered one whit.

“We’re on our own side, now,” Crowley had said, after, as the bus pulled up to take them back to London.

They sat together, on that empty bus. No words were exchanged. Aziraphale totally-accidentally brushed his leg against Crowley’s. And then kept it there, a warm point of contact.

It took him a minute to realize that something was off.

The touch didn’t hurt.

Shocked, he stared down at where their knees brushed. He looked up at where Crowley had his head leaning against the bus window. He reached out, and took Crowley’s hand. The fingers were just a little on the cool side, but his palm was warm. It didn’t hurt.

Crowley startled, and then looked down at their hands, and then looked back at Aziraphale.

“Angel,” he said, wonderingly.

They went home.

~

Footnotes:

[1] Botflies lay their eggs in the human dermis (and other animals’ dermises). These eggs hatch and grow, and grow, and then burst forth, disgustingly. DO NOT Google botflies unless you are fully prepared mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to feel your skin crawl so viciously it sloughs right off, packs its bags, and moves to the Arctic Circle, angry at being made aware that botflies are a real thing that exist in the actual world. Beelzebub adores botflies, of course. Crowley would never voice any negative opinion of them out loud. He would be summarily fired by his boss, in the most literal of senses. But there is just no explanation for the existence of botflies that does not start and end with, “God Is Just Straight Up Titillated By Nasty Shit.” [return to text]

[2] Crowley rather enjoyed telling God to go suck a tit. Whether God ever acted upon his advice is anyone’s guess. [return to text]

[3] A quality of older vehicles that is not preserved in the newer models, is how the front seat is not set up as two separate seats, but rather a single plush bench. This makes for a much easier time closing the gap between two passengers in the front seat. [return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate crack ending, that I really truly had to resist writing: They discorporate each other in bed, and then have to go explain to their bosses what happened to their old bodies, where their old bodies are now, and why they need new ones.
> 
> Jk I can have my cake and eat it too, that’s Fan Fiction Baybey:
> 
> **Form D15-C029024710-N, For The Requisition Of A New Body In The Event Of Discorporation:**
> 
>  **Cause of discorporation:** _~~having the most forbidden sex imaginable~~ working hard, and diligently as always, at spreading our influence upon the Earth, which can an extremely dangerous place, really, and if I’m being perfectly honest it’s a miracle I haven’t been discorporated more frequently, and it’s only because I’m very good at my job that I hardly ever endure the costly inconvenience of discorporation_
> 
>  **Location of corpse:** _~~lying in bed with the Enemy, mid-orgasm~~ totally, utterly, and irretrievably destroyed, much to my endless dismay and most sincere regret_
> 
>  **Why you require a new body:** _~~to fuck the Enemy again, but like do it better this time~~ to continue my very important and dangerous work on the battlefield of Earth, because I am but a humble servant of our Cause, and I’m determined to carry out my duty no matter the obstacles or setbacks_
> 
> **Reasons why you ought to be issued a new body:**  
> 
> 
> _
>   * ~~I like, really want to have sex with the Enemy again, no matter the risks~~
>   * I’m in the middle of a very delicate operation that will definitely win many human souls to our side if I can see it through to completion, and I would hate for all the effort I’ve put into it so far go to waste
>   * ~~I’m 80% sure that with additional experimentation I can figure out a way to bone down with my sweetie without us exploding, probably~~
>   * I’ve been working on Earth for six thousand years tirelessly making great strides for our Cause, and I wish to continue to do so
>   * ~~He’s so horny and stupid, and I need to be there for him~~
> _
>   * _My work speaks for itself. I’m experienced, accomplished, and dedicated. My new body will be put to very good and beneficial use._
> 

> 
> thanksssssss for reading! uwu


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